Alexander Von Dyne
by Tjin
Summary: During the Episode 'The Pack' Alexander is attacked by a vampire, dying and currently possessed by two separate spirits the banishing spell sent him far, far away.
1. Prologue

(I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Girl Genius.)

* * *

Rupert Giles stepped into the living room of his apartment with a tea set and carefully set it out before his guest.

He had been surprised that the man had requested a Russian style tea rather than the style of his own homeland. Still, Giles was nothing if not a gracious host and had quickly managed to get the black tea concentrated down before setting out a small assortment of jams along with some orange zest.

With deft hands his guest made himself a cup with zest, honey and a touch of blackberry jam before adding a small amount of liquid from a silver flask.

Giles almost missed the slight-of-hand that the man used to swap that particular flask for an identical one that he then offered to Giles, who politely declined the offer. Giles made his own cup of tea with far fewer additions before leaning back and staring at the man across from him.

At nearly six and a half feet tall and powerfully built, the man had made an appearance during the climactic showdown with Angelus before the demonic statue, dirty blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail at the back as darker brown patches dotted themselves across his mane giving him a spotted look.

The oddest feature was the man's eyes, golden with a hint of red swirling through them. They held a weight that seemed to be judging and evaluating everything he witnessed.

As he sipped his drink, Giles took note of the pair of long fangs hidden behind the man's upper lip. He had yet to see the man smile, but something told him that such an event would curdle milk and set children to crying for miles around.

He was an oddity to be sure, dressed in an eclectic combination of ancient European styles, but with a certain flair to them that made the ensemble work. Dark pants and heavy, handcrafted boots, his belt was a workman's utility style with a mad collection of items. Covered in a grey, Russian greatcoat and further festooned with an assortment of gadgets, he made for quite a spectacle.

Giles blamed his own loss of blood for the fact that he had overlooked the imposing man several times as he had stood in the center of Angelus' mansion before a polite cough had drawn his attention. The large figure of a man stood before the pile of dust that had once been one of the most feared vampires of all time.

Glancing over at the skull his guest had taken from the Vampire's skeleton, Giles leaned back casually before taking a sip of his own drink. "So Alexander, why don't you tell me what happened," Giles asked.

His guest seemed to get a faraway look as he stroked his hand across the skull for a moment before responding, "I suppose I should start where you last saw me, in the Hyena House back at the zoo." The man spoke with a heavy Eastern European accent in his rumbling voice that he had not had the last time they had spoken. "You may remember me arriving, covered in blood and weak. A vampire had jumped me and my throat had been torn out. In return, the Hyena had ripped the undead apart and eaten it's cold heart before seeking help from the pack. The Alpha had unknowingly completed the blood ritual to turn me into a vampire."

He shrugged, "Two spirits bound to the same body. They would have torn me apart had your banishing spell not hit me first. Neither would submit to being cast out of my body and so they took me along for the ride." Taking another sip of tea, he fought down the grimace he felt at the memory.

"In the void beyond, the two spirits fought for possession of my body, changing it and repairing the damage done. Finally, the vampire won, casting the Hyena spirit into the void. Had I remained, I have no doubt the blood demon would have easily overpowered my own soul and cast me into darkness as well." Taking another sip of tea, Xander shrugged. "But even in the void beyond it seems someone was watching out for me. In a flash of light I found myself in a new hell, submerged in an unholy concoction of acid, lightning and pain. Fortunately, any pain I felt was tenfold worse for the blood demon as the waters I found myself in were holy, of a sort. Despite its strength, the demon was finally sent screaming back to hell even as I was pulled from the waters. My savior would be none other than the devil himself."

A look of anger and loathing crossed the man's face as he continued, "Saturnus Heterodyne had been experimenting in the great movement chamber of the Castle itself when I had appeared. Given my unique new body and the morphic abilities of the Dyne itself, he consoled his disappointment at the experiment's failure with the presence of a new test subject."

"You were tortured?" Giles asked in shock before he was frozen by Xander's look.

"Tortured? No, torture is an act designed to pry information from the reticent lips of another. Saturnus had no desire for such things and I had no inclination to withhold it, had he but asked there would have been no secret I would have kept, no scrap of knowledge I would not have shared."

Xander growled darkly as his anger grew and Giles could almost swear he saw flames dancing in the man's eyes.

"I was an experiment. A bug under glass to be dissected to see what made me tick and put back together at his whim. I was pulled apart and then sewn back up and then left to heal. He discovered and quantified my enhanced strength and healing factors before setting out to increase them, again leaving me a broken shell for days, weeks on end until he came for me again, for times uncounted. My time in the void between caused me to naturally collect Aethartic Energy that built up in my system and he wanted to see if he could replicate the process. When that failed, he attempted to weaponize it; logging, recording and siphoning off the energy for use in his other experiments. My screams went unanswered, my efforts to escape that hell were seen as little more than amusing anecdotes by my captor, but through it all I learned. Russian, Latin, Romanian and a dozen more languages, all of which I used to curse the family Heterodyne."

Realizing his rage, Xander took a moment to calm himself from the old anger. "The only spark of light was the random appearance of the Lady Teodora who would sneak in at times and offer some slight hope in my darkest hours. Never for long and she would always have to return to her 'boys'." Xander took a deep breath and gently stirred the tea for a moment before calmly he clamly stated, "I hated them. I know it's irrational, but they were the reason she couldn't help me anymore than she did. So I hated them for existing."

"And then, one day the door to my hell was opened and it was not Saturnus that entered but the two boys that I hated so very much, Teodora had poisoned the late Lord and the castle had crushed her for it, leaving the castle, it's lands and all of its experiments to Bill and Barry Heterodyne, the sons of the late and unlamented monster. At his passing, they had begun to clear out their fathers more despicable… Undertakings." Taking another sip, Xander sighed, "I wasn't even in the top one hundred most atrocious experiments." Alexander confessed with a shrug before he continued on, "I was, however, the first one that could be saved."

As Xander got lost in thought, Giles reached over and gently took a small scone, giving the man some time to get himself under control.

Taking a deep breath, Xander returned to the present moment, "It took me nearly a year of constant struggle to reach the point where I could reenter the world and when I did, I found a world that was not my own. This particular world was a madman's dream of Victorian-era mad science where the Frankenstein monster would be a normal Tuesday for the Madboy Sparks."

Finishing his tea, Xander poured another cup and added another dose from the flask, "I couldn't stay in Mechanicsburg. The village, the people, the Castle itself where proud of Saturnus, of 'Their Heterodyne'. I couldn't stay, so I gathered some tools and went out in search of a way home."

Taking a deep breath, Xander leaned back in the chair and sighed, "I didn't make it. I searched for more than a decade and never found a way home."

With that Xander went back to his tea, letting Giles collect his thoughts after the story and come up with some questions.

"Very well, you said you naturally collect 'athertic' energy?" Giles tried the word out before Xander leaned back and sighed.

The man enunciated, "Ah-Thar-Tik Energy, is..., the closest term would be 'friction' between dimensions. As they run at different speeds and along different paths they create Aethartic energy, which builds up either within the dimensions themselves causing any number of strange oddities such as; split timelines, wormholes, magic, psychics, gods, madboy sparks or dark matter. If it builds up in the void itself it tends to generate new dimensions themselves… well that or the monstrous outsiders that seek to devour all life."

At this the two men glanced around carefully in case just speaking of them would attract their attention before returning to their conversation "I naturally absorb it and can use it for several effects, however, should it build up too much I will be sucked into the void until I can bleed it off."

After a moment, Xander shrugged beneath his great coat "It is not a pleasant experience."

Having read some of the reports different beings gave to their time between dimensions, Giles could understand the severity of that particular understatement, "Very well, Tell me more about your adventures in this other world then."

* * *

Standing before the mirror, Xander looked at himself again, the scars and stitching were as well hidden as could be under the pseudo-Victorian style clothing of this world as he tried to ignore the presence on the far side of the room.

"You don't have to leave, you know."

Turning his red-gold eyes towards the dashing blonde that had saved him, Xander resisted the urge to snarl.

Apparently, he needed some more work on that as Bill flinched slightly and looked away.

"Yeah, sorry, but no. The castle, the town and the people are one thing..." Xander said before trailing off and trying to keep his voice from rising in anger.

Still, Bill was one of the most observant people he had ever met and he leaned back against the wall with a sigh, "But me and Barry." he surmised as Xander flinched and sighed.

"You, your voice, your smell, the way you stand. Hell, even that weird harmonic you make when you're working," Xander snarled before a sharp pain caused him to glance down at the crumpled remains of the iron bed post. He forced himself to let go and take a step back before he continued, "Even that… THAT." he tried to explain, waving vaguely at the aura surrounding the man before he turned back to the mirror and tried to regain his calm focus.

The boys had been quite startled to discover that Xander had the ability to 'See' the spark if it was strong enough in a person. Not that he really saw it with his eyes, as he had been able to track them in the dark as well. Had the boys had even an ounce of their father in them they would have had his eyes and frontal lobe in a jar within moments of learning that fact in an attempt to find out how he did it.

Even now, the duo would cast looks his way as they fondled beakers of fluids or odd contraptions.

In the end, Xander had decided to strike out on his own. It would be better for everyone involved if he could quickly find his way back home, it wouldn't even be hard, there was really only one person in the entire pox be damned town that he could care about.

He had slipped out of the town late in the night. The Jagers had watched his passing with keen, cruel eyes as he leapt across the River Dyne with a whisper and disappeared into the dark.

* * *

"CRUSH HIM MY GLEEKIN! SHOW HIM THE STRENGTH OF THE GACK!-"

The man's mad cackling was cut off as Xander's hand wrapped around his throat and lifted him into the air. Behind him twenty glowing, prepubescent constructs stitched together from a hundred different children stood awkwardly as their creator dangled from the much larger grip of the man that had let them out of their cages and had introduced them to 'cake.' He had even promised to find them something better called a 'twinkie,' but several of the Gleekin thought he was just making that up as nothing could be better than cake.

On the one hand, their creator had given them an order. On the other, Xander had given them cake.

Glancing at each other, the Gleekin unanimously decided that cake was far superior to any claim the self-described Doctor-King could make on them.

DocKing 'Zumil the Unexpected' turned a very dark shade of purple in the big man's grasp as he scrabbled futilely at the hand that was cutting off his access to oxygen.

One part of the mad spark's mind made a mental note to find some way to bypass such a mundane need as 'breathing.' Maybe with a self-winding pump organ that could act as a bagpipe to help him enthrall children so he wouldn't have to search for them anymore. The rest of his mind seemed to be focused on the bright spots of light that were popping in front of his eyes as he blacked out.

As the madman finally slumped, Xander maintained his hold for several more minutes before dropping the corpse to the ground. Glancing up at the children that had been killed by the monster so he could craft them into their current form, Xander sighed before pasting on a happy smile, "All right Kiddoes, let's get this place burned to the ground and I'll take you all out for a Verdens Beste."

As the child-like constructs cheered and happily set to the task of torching the lab that had created them, Xander whispered a dark prayer to whoever was listening that Zumil would burn in hell next to Saturnus. He had been traveling for a year trying to find a way back home when he had found himself in a city under siege. The mad doctor had built up a type of aversion field around the city of Oslo that had kept the populace within even as he stole their children for his twisted experiments.

He didn't know how long it had been going on, but Xander had refused to let it continue. His little adventure had freed the city and he had taken the child-like constructs with him as he sought his home.

(A/n: 'Verdens Beste' is considered by many to be the 'best cake in the world' and is a point of pride for many Scandinavian countries.)

* * *

Taking a sip of tea, Xander settled further into the chair. "Zumi's notes indicated that he planned to use the population of Oslo as breeding stock so that he had a steady supply of 'parts' for his Gleekin for the next decade or two. After that he planned to set out to conquer Europe. After stopping him and finally realizing that I had no way home, I settled the Gleekin in a small glade in southern Italy before setting out again. I had several adventures, heard that the boys were having their own and basically did my best to make the world a little less horrible wherever I could."

Rubbing his eyes at the memories, Xander sighed and shook his head. "I could stop the monsters and mad sparks all day long, but the boys… They could inspire! The stories told about them were the things of cult legends. Everywhere they went, whole regions were changed for the better. They laughed, built and adventured like they were something out of a story. The Heterodynes had a history that would put Hitler to shame, a history that went back more than a thousand years and in less than two decades the boys had changed the perception of the name entirely."

He sighed, "Eventually even I got roped into a couple of their adventures. The Heterodyne Boys and the Question of the Shanghai Mumluk, a rather interesting story that involved the boys, Klaus, me and an aspiring Kingpin of the local Pagebinder Bandits." With a smile, Xander reminisced about his time helping them close the case and keep the lesser floating Greek Island fortress of Anafi from sinking beneath the waves.

"I'd been sending the random monster, construct, sentient clank and lesser madboy back to my little spit of land in Italy, by that point I had, without knowing it, carved out a small enclave or empire in Southern Italy. Once I realized that I had left my people for too long, I settled down and set to the task of administering a small town built around the Gleekin and a couple hundred other constructs, monsters, minions and citizens that I had rescued over the years. The boys, too, settled down. Bill marrying the daughter of the Mongfish family, the Stalin's to the Heterodynes Hitlers, to keep the theme going."

At Giles' flinch, Xander nodded, "Bill and Klaus had vied for her hand for a number of years, but finally Bill won and Klaus fled in shame. I couldn't make the wedding, but my Gleekin worked for weeks to craft a special type of near frictionless gear lube that could also act as a dessert topping. Barry sent me a strongly worded letter of reprimand for the perversion of the gift. Lucrezia sent me her thanks and an invitation to their child's christening,"

Smiling at Giles' snort, Xander pressed on, "The boys settled down for a bit, Bill's son 'Klaus Barry' was born almost exactly nine months after their wedding and for the first time there was peace in Europa."

"Am I to assume that it didn't last," Giles asked and took Xander's nod as confirmation that no matter the world, the story seemed to always repeat itself.

"The Boys had set off to battle some sentient vegetable army or other that had gotten away from a Spark. Castle Heterodyne was blown up, Klaus Barry was killed and Lucrezia was kidnapped. It was the first attack of a madman known only as 'The Other.' A madman that seemed hell-bent on destroying the world. Sparks were bombed into dust and towns and cities were depopulated by bug monsters. The warrior breed was bad enough, like the creatures in the movie, Starship Troopers. But the horror was in the Slaver Wasps that came with the warrior bugs. Small, fast bastards that if they stung a human could convert them into revenants, shambling zombies that would turn on their own friends in a matter of minutes. Massive swaths of Europe were emptied, there wasn't any cure that we could find."

Setting his cup to the side, Xander leaned forward slightly. "I did the best I could to help, when and where I could. Even in the darkest hours the stories would tell of heroes standing up; lesser Sparks, monsters, constructs as well as normal men and women making final stands to try and stop the seemingly unstoppable. And everywhere the Boys would show up, shatter some stronghold or ignite a new uprising before they ran off to another fight. They weren't the happy, jolly boys that they had been before the attack, but they were still in the fight. And then, it was over."

Blinking at the sudden end, Giles blinked and leaned forward, his tea forgotten on the table, "Over?"

"No more attacks, no swarms, no slavers. The revenants stumbled about mindlessly as if whatever had been compelling them had been cut off. The Other was simply gone and with them the Boys as well. I got a letter a couple months after from Barry stating that they had a lead on the Other and were hoping to end the threat once and for all, but after that, nothing. I tried to search for them, but with the collapse of so many of the Sparks around Europe, the entire region was in a mad dash towards their first world war."

"Into this stepped the returning Klaus Wulfenbach, and he single handedly forged an empire the likes of which the world had never seen. The Pax Transylvania lived by the single idiom of 'Don't make me come over there!' If there was chaos, he moved in and brought peace, at any cost. Any further disruption of the peace after that would be 'Frowned upon.' As he once said, he preferred, 'Frowned Upon' as it was far less inflammatory a sentence than anything that resembled 'Bootheels on the necks of the idiots!' He didn't like it, but he damn well did it. And he damn well did it well."

"You respected him," Giles stated as Xander nodded again.

"Enough so that I willingly relinquished the Glade, my own micro-empire to Baron Wulfenbach, giving up all claim and going back to what I was good at. Sixteen years later and the Baron's Peace reached from Constantinople to Paris and I was the preeminent monster hunter and general problem solver for Klaus. He never forgave me for being able to give up ruling while he was stuck herding cats all day. As such he tended to send me after the most annoying headaches he had to deal with and let me settle them in his stead."

Grimacing as he swallowed a mouthful of cold tea, Giles wiped his mouth on a napkin before he commented on the story, "Sounds like you had some measure of authority."

"I was… seventh highest ranked member of the Empire, third in a crisis situation. Klaus trusted me with power because he damn well knew I wouldn't keep it, no matter how much he begged. Eventually, though we had what we had been dreaming of, what we had worked for, poured blood, sweat, and tears into. Peace in our Time. A world where normal people could live without fear that some mad boy was going to snap and send cannibal meat pies at them during the night."

Xander smiled at the memory before shaking his head "And then it all went wrong again."

* * *

(A/n: Thanks for reading, this is dedicated to the legendary fic 'A Spark of Genius' from michaelsuave, Yes Xander has had upgrades, he has paid for those upgrades and no, he isn't the strongest thing to ever exist in ever, many things in the Girl Genius universe are stronger than him, but his very presence will be changing things.)


	2. Chapter 1 - Bugging Out

" _DiE SloWLY LiKE THe MiSErABLE RaTS YoU ArE!_ "

Blinking at the odd harmonics that the screaming voice had, Xander reached out and wrapped his fingers around the necks of the two fleeing men that were making a hasty retreat from the area. He could hear the distraught cries of a female coming from the direction they were running from. Lifting the two effortlessly into the air, he ignored the hands struggling against his grip as he stared at the two carefully.

"Moloch and Omar Von Zinzer" he stated with a rather sinister grin as the duo's struggles became even more desperate. Apparently, the two were not keen on meeting someone that knew them by name. Flipping the two brothers around, Xander slammed them onto the paving bricks of the alley and let the impact take the fight out of them before plucking the tightly clasped item out of Omar's hand. Ignoring the groaning pain of the two brothers beneath him, Xander sighed, "Petty larceny is so, well, petty." he grumbled before giving Omar a relatively soft kick to the kidney to keep the man down.

"The Baron had a standing offer of employment for you two if you should show up in his lands, he even wanted to buy D'Omas' Gunboat off you if you were still in possession of it, but to find you stealing from townfo-GRAAAH!"

Xander's rant was broken off as his hand rubbed against the locket and several parts of his construct body locked up in screaming pain.

He could feel the energy trying to worm its way into his mind, to crush and subvert it before he managed to toss the offending device away with a snarl, the remnants of his Hyena possession took the attack personally and before he knew it he had the two brothers in a nearly crushing grip as he hoisted them aloft, "WHERE DID YOU GET THAT!"

The two soldiers had seen berzerk constructs before. The Duke had made a habit of sending the gunboats out after his carefully crafted paramours once they snapped beyond his control, even then the relatively soft 'Pleasure' constructs had been like whirlwinds of terror and death when they got close. To be held in the clutches of a fully realized war construct in a berzerk state was something out of a nightmare for the two brothers.

In a stream of half coherent babble the two related their recent mugging of the poor townie that had stumbled on to them.

Dropping the two, Xander shook his hand and with a grunt pulled out a sphere from his pocket. With a twist, the device expanded and with a bit of work he scraped the locket into the ball and closed it up, watching as the dials on the top spun for several seconds. Xander sighed and dropped the sphere into his pocket, "You two are lucky I found you. That was a madboy device, it generated a neuron inhibitor, a type of null energy that has a bad habit of shutting down the higher brain functions. Had you kept it in your possession you would have grown dim sometime tonight before dying as your autonomic functions failed sometime tomorrow."

As the two shouted in rage at the obvious assassination attempt, Xander waved them off, "No, this is far too complex for something as mundane as murder, it would be as crazy as custom hand building a gunboat to stomp on a particularly annoying Minmoth. No this this feels like something far more sinister," he grumbled before reaching into his pocket and flipping a pair of coins at the two men.

Snatching them out of the air, the two soldiers stared in shock at the imprinted image of a Gleekin showing a tooth filled grin as its extended arm the first two digits held in a 'V' pose. The five pound Gleekin Thallar was one of the few accepted forms of currency that was nearly universally accepted in Europa and was equal to a year's wage for the two soldiers in their old jobs.

"I have two more if you are willing to help me find the person you took this from."

"What?"  
"YES!"

As the two brothers turned to squabbling over the danger vs cost return Xander stood and dusted himself off, he knew the two were mercenary enough to take the job. Still, the fact that someone had been walking around with a neuron inhibitor was a terrifying thought.

Not that there was an inhibitor, he had seen those back during his time in the castle, but that someone was walking around with one.

Finally turning to the two, he noticed the reluctance on Moloch's face as Omar grinned and flipped his coin in the air, "Looks like you have our services, sir. Do you mind if we spend a spot of our signing bonus on a bite to eat?"

Omar froze as a small bundle was shoved into his hands by the man that towered over him "Horse Jerky, Cantal cheese, dry apples and hard tack." he said as the two men unwrapped the ancient equivalent of an MRE and with a grunt dug into the first meal they'd had in days. They were still gnawing on the jerky as they crossed back across the street and into the alley in which they had first accosted the girl. The cracked bottle of Beetle Beer still sat in its sullen puddle in the corner. Thankfully even Moloch seemed to be getting into the spirit of the adventure now that his belly and coin purse were full.

Leaning against one of the boxes stacked nearby, Moloch chewed on a particularly flavorful bit of meat as he stared at the massive man that had hired them. "So why would a Townie be walking around with a Nu-Ron inhibitor, then?" he asked as Xander shifted through the area looking for any clues that could be had.

"Well it could very well be an assassination attempt, the item didn't have an activation switch so they could have easily swapped it out for one of the girl's pieces of jewelry and simply stood back as she died. No muss, no fuss," Xander said as he studied a heeled footprint that the girl had left in the dirt.

"But you don't think so, do ya?" Omar challenged as Xander looked up at the alley.

"No, I couldn't tell a lot before the energy started to damage me, but the girl's smell had worked its way into the metal of the locket itself. That doesn't happen quickly, she must have been wearing it for several years by this point."

Blinking at that, the two brothers glanced at each other before looking back at their new boss with a frown, "I Thought the locket would have killed us in a day or so?"

"And now you know why I'm concerned," Xander answered before waving the two to follow and stepped out into the street. "This is going to be an issue," he said as he bulldozed his way through the crowd, the majority of the people moving to escape the massive construct and leaving a wake that allowed the two humans to keep up with him. "We need to speak to the Baron about this. If you have any concerns I'm willing to cash you out now for half pay, or you can stay on and I'll make sure you have a job for a good long while."

Behind him, Xander could almost hear the two holding a nearly silent conversation before Moloch let out a put upon sigh. "Looks like you have the Brothers Von Zinzer, sir." he grumbled as Xander smiled.

"Good! The name's Xander or Alexander Von Dyne, if you have to be official. I'm the personal problem solver and monster hunter for Baron Wulfenbach," he explained quickly as they entered the massive university grounds and began to cross them without pause. Any commentary on his own, nearly legendary, history was interrupted by a massive explosion to the side of the head of a giant clank that appeared to be staring into a building.

With a groan, the oversized tinkertoy flailed back for a second before collapsing towards Xander and his two minions.

Ignoring the shrieks of alarm from the two, Xander reached out and clasped their shoulders before gathering the full measure of Aethartic energy he had collected and with a pulse, all three of them were standing at the front door of the university research labs. Above them the giant Clank that was peering into the building was struck in the head by a massive explosion and with a groan the oversized tinkertoy flailed back for a second before collapsing to the carefully trimmed grass of the university grounds.

Around them everything had taken on a slightly reddish tint that was quite disconcerting to the two mortals.

"We are currently five seconds ahead of ourselves. Try not to interfere with things outside of us or you may get stuck in phase and never get out, and that would bring you to the attention of 'Them.' I can assure you, nobody wants that," Xander stressed to them as he pushed past the door and made his way towards the labs. He had been around Sparks enough to know that the giant kill-bot had probably been threatening Klaus before it exploded.

As they moved, the two soldiers noticed that the crowd seemed to be a bit slow on the uptake, seeming to look at where they had been instead of where they were, though as they moved the two were catching up to each other.

Things had just about synched up when a fusillade of bullets ripped a half dozen of the Invincible Army soldiers to junk just ahead of them. Slipping into the room, Xander took stock of the situation and moved.

"NO! I'll NEVER Submit to that! NEVER!"

As the last dregs of time seemed to synch up, Xander caught the ranting man's hand in his own, larger one, the bomb carefully held in place within the dark skinned man's hand by the former Scooby who looked at his master. "Klaus, we have an issue!"

Blinking at the sudden appearance of his friend, Klaus gave a soft sigh of relief before waving at the massive sphere that had been hidden behind the false wall "Bigger than a hive engine in the middle of Beetleburg?" he asked as Xander's eyes flickered over to the big doom ball before glancing back at him.

"Is it active?"

Glancing at the weapon for a moment Klaus actually considered the question before responding, "Well… no." he announced.

Xander nodded, "Then yes, I believe this might be bigger than an unresponsive ball sitting in a secure lab surrounded by the third airborne, the seventh mechanauts and a full division of Jägersmonsters as well as what remains of Doctor Beetles' Invincible army." he answered with a grin that caused the Baron to sigh.

Keeping his hand tightly enclosed around the good doctor's hand and the device within, Xander used his other hand to pull out his Pokeball and opened it with a twitch of his hand, "Someone has been suppressing a spark with Null Energy."

"No!"  
"WHAT!"  
"Impossible."  
"My Locket!"

As one the occupants of the room turned towards the lone female as she pointed at the locket.

"Hey Boss, that's the girl."

Turning back to the two soldiers that had carefully taken seats on the slightly smoking husks of Doctor Beetles' Invincible army, Xander felt the urge to facepalm. Unfortunately both hands were currently occupied, so he had to live vicariously through the Baron who simply slapped a hand over his own face and groaned.

"That's my locket! My uncle Barry made it for me when I was six, it has the only pictures of my parents in it."

Carefully shifting the device around so he could open it without coming into contact with the mind-destroying energy that it emitted, Xander carefully hit the catch and blinked at the two figures within before glancing at the girl again and then back at the pictures. "Oh fuck, this is a hell of a lot bigger than a Hive Engine." he hissed.

Any further issue was interrupted by Doctor Beetle finally growing tired of being a bit character in the unfolding drama. With a cry of 'Szeretett Az Isten!'

Xander screamed in blinding pain for the second time of the day as his hand felt like a billion angry wasps had taken to stabbing him with rapiers for the destruction of their mad god-queen. Ignoring the urge to curse in a dozen different languages, he made a mental note to check on Doctor Akre once he was back at the castle and make sure she wasn't trying to reform her Verpary Knights again. Three times with the bastards was two times too many!

Turning to glare at the pile of ash that had once been Doctor Tarsus Beetle, Xander shook his hand to try and recover feeling in it, "This! This is why I avoid the theatrics Klaus! It's always a headache when you madboys get desperate," Xander snarled before stomping over to the small avalanche of junk that had apparently fallen out of a closet that was obviously too small to contain the volume with which it had been stuffed full.

"Desperate? H-he blew himself up!" the girl shouted in shock as the Baron's son stood nearby with a goldfish in a bowl held awkwardly in hand.

Frowning at the girl, Xander carefully closed up his Pokeball and repocketed it as he dug through the junk. "I said desperate, not suicidal," he growled before finding what he had been looking for. Swiping the glass bell off the base he carefully ignored the slightly glowing rose that it had been protecting as it floated beneath.

"That wasn't a bomb miss…" Xander frowned as he glanced at the occupants of the room before raising an eyebrow at her in question.

"Clay, Agatha Clay."

"Right… Clay… Anyways, Agatha, that wasn't a bomb That was a bit of stage magic. A bright flash of light so everyone looks away and 'Hey Presto' a perfect escape," Xander explained as he carefully brushed the ash pile away while he continued to explain. "He probably would have gotten away with it too if I hadn't been reading up on his research on my way over here. See, while Beetle is a genius beyond compare in almost all things mechanical, his original thesis was on size manipulation. Back when he was younger he was obsessed with size. Klaus can probably go into greater detail, but the 'short' and long of it was that Beetle wanted to be big."

Ignoring Agatha's defense of her master's size, Xander carefully watched as Klaus stepped closer and squatted next to him near the ash pile, "Indeed, it wasn't until my fifth year that he finally declared his research to be a complete failure and turned his focus on the mechanics of Clanks, a field that he excelled in," the Baron said as Xander nodded.

"An absolute failure," Xander clarified before carefully lowering the glass bell down, trapping the quarter inch tyrant under glass "You see, he could never make himself bigger, but it would be child's play to make himself smaller."

"S-so he's okay?"

Glancing up at the blond, Xander gave her his best fang filled smile along with a thumbs up just to be safe. "Sure, sure, it will probably be a while before he's back to his old, scowling self. Though personally I'd leave him as is, set him up with an office and the like and give him a couple assistants and a teletype so he can run the city. Heck, you can put him out in the quad on display and let the city see him work, call it, 'The Tiny Tyrant of Beetleburg' or something." Xander joked as he tapped the glass holding the tiny man that appeared to be hopping up and down as he screamed.

Rubbing his eyes to cover the grin that was tugging at his lips, Klaus turned to Boris, "See that Doctor Beetle is fully equipped for the running of the city. Bedchambers, washing facility, dining room, office and a small lab," he ordered as the four armed man nodded as he jotted notes.

"I'll see to it personally, sir. Concerning his assistants, both reduced and full size, are there any specifics we should look for? I doubt his previous choice would be a valid option," Boris said with a glare at the stunned Silas Merlot for the man's part in the current crises.

Nodding at that particular issue, Klaus considered the situation before smiling, "Check the school registry, you'll likely find several names, I'm sure. Poor grades, well endowed, almost certainly female that have signed up for all of Beetles' lectures. A Spark of his power attracts the type," Klaus explained as he tried not to think of his own Fangirls that had plagued him in his younger years, before shrugging.

"Beetle will have likely put a note in each of their files stating that he is to avoid being left alone with them. Teach them the basics of Spark Care one oh one, as Xander calls it and cycle them through every three to six months or so. Let nature take its course, but any children that may or may not be conceived are to be brought to the castle. Octavia is growing into a bright young lady in her own right, but I would not be adverse to having a few of my old friend's children running around."

Coughing to cover a chuckle, Boris turned aside for a moment before nodding in understanding. "And for our Judas here?" he asked, pointing a quill at Merlot who was just beginning to grasp that his choices in recent minutes may not have been in his own best interests.

Glancing at the man that had started the escalation, the Baron rubbed his chin in thought. "While I despise traitors, I must say that without a loss of life it might be a tad excessive to send him to the castle."

"Give him to my fanboy."

Glancing over at Xander, Klaus rolled his eyes.

Xander sat near the small glass bell and used a brazier and a small hand cranked bellows to pump marijuana smoke into the tiny tyrant's enclosure where the previously enraged man was now laying against the glass and appeared to be giggling.

"Do you think he would take him?"

Finishing up with operation, 'smoked beetle,' Xander carefully tamped out the Spark grown weed before closing it up, putting everything back into his coat and standing up. "Only one way to find out, besides, if he says no then at least you tried to be reasonable before you shipped him off to the castle." Xander rummaged through his pockets and pulled out a well faded and crumpled piece of yellow paper, "Here we go miss… Agatha, please just read this out loud."

Blinking at suddenly being addressed by the man, Agatha carefully took the paper and after a glance at it looked back up to make sure he wasn't joking. At his encouraging nod, Agatha sighed and said in a monotone, "Eek. Oh Woe is me. I appear to be trapped in a cage as I am being slowly lowered into a pit of carnivorous magpies. Whoever could save me?" She lowered the paper and then shrieked in shock as the window at the upper level of the lab exploded.

The shower of glittering glass sparkled around the massive form that had, for some reason, taken a dive through the glass. A bit of unnecessary destruction, considering the perfectly functioning hole already existing in the wall, thanks to Mr. Tock' earlier presence.

"WHAT HO! Who else, but I, Othar _Tryggvassen_! ( _ **Gentleman Adventurer!**_ )" he cried as he performed a rather amazing but pointless double front flip before landing perfectly on the lab floor and glancing around from behind his visor with his trademark smile before losing the majority of his humor. "Oh, I see, it's just Gil screaming like a girl again. I must say once more that I don't swing that way young man and it's bordering on harassment for you to keep calling me!" the big Norwegian said with a scowl before finally taking note of the other assembled people in the room.

Ignoring the suddenly red-faced Gilgamesh, Othar managed to stamp down on his urge to squeal as Xander slowly pocketed the slip of paper and the gold coin Klaus had handed him in response to a long-standing bet the two had. Then he glanced around at the shattered remains of the lab with a smile.

Dropping the coin in his pocket, Xander smiled before turning to the man that had dogged his heels since he had first met him in Grimstad nearly twenty years earlier, "OTHAR! There you are, my man. I was just talking about you," Xander said and ignored the rather high pitched squeal the burly Norwegian gave as he threw his arm around the shorter man, "I know you're busy, but I really need someone to watch out for this guy. He's been walking the line just short of villain for a while now and today he almost went full bore over the edge," he explained as Othar scowled down at the rather thin Merlot. "Thankfully we caught it in time and nobody got hurt, but I want to give him a chance at the hero thing instead. Now I can't take him on because of my duty to the empire. Klaus was just going to throw him away and while I considered letting Gil have a crack at him… well…" the two men turned to glance at the red-faced heir to the empire before shaking their heads in unison in disappointment. "So I'm going to ask, Othar Tryggvassen, will you take Silas Merlot on as your spunky sidekick."

Glancing at the man that was obviously at least a decade older than himself, Othar considered the situation carefully. While he would be the first to admit that the idea of helping his idol would be a dream come true and the chance to save a lost soul before it fell to darkness was what he usually did as a hero, he was also a tad conflicted. Usually his spunky sidekicks were female and younger, and female.

Did he mention female?

Still, this was Xander asking. So with a put-upon sigh, Othar raised his visor up and gave the construct a firm glare before dropping it back into place. "Very well, I could not call myself a hero without at least trying, but YOU OWE ME!" he grunted before reaching down and wrapping a massive, meaty fist around the quaking doctor, lifted him up and strode out of the lab with the struggling former villain tossed over his shoulder like a bag of codfish heads. The things he did to be a hero.

Resisting the urge to cackle evilly, Xander brushed his hands of the slimy little man before turning back to the last issue at hand, the lost daughter of Bill and Lucrezia Heterodyne.

Yeah, this wasn't going to go over well.

-

(A/n) 'Szeretett Az Isten' is the Beetle family Motto, it translates to 'Beloved by god' and is a rather cheeky play on a question asked of a researcher about what studying Beetles can tell you about the mind of the creators, the researcher looked at them and said 'Apparently he really loved Beetles.'

It's known that Othar decided that all Sparks need to die due to the destruction of Oslo, which is about two hundred and fifty kilometers from his hometown of Grimstad. Nothing is ever said of what happened to Oslo, so in my version, Doctor King Zumi used the capital city as a breeding factory so he had parts for his construct army. Xander broke that almost twenty years earlier, so Othar didn't have to wade through thousands of children's corpses in a dead city. As such he's far more 'together' than he is in the canon universe.

As for Klaus, in the canon universe, everyone assumed he was The Other (the evidence did point to it being someone that the boys knew and he was a solid suspect if you didn't know that he'd been hoodwinked by Lucrezia.) As such everyone hid from him. In this story, Xander is still around which gives him some solid support during his attempt to calm the war torn Europe.


	3. Chapter 2 - Negotiation Tactics

Tucking into a roll, Xander let the energy of the throw bleed off in a tumble before he scrambled to his feet and launched himself at the man that had fallen deep into the Spark madness. Xander could feel the palpable rage that seemed to radiate off his skin as he hit the Baron in the back. Ignoring the warning bells that told him that facing off against a Spark/Construct that had gone this far off the deep end, he wrapped his arms around the undisputed ruler of Europa and with a grunt flipped himself backwards, suplexing the man into the reinforced lab floor and leaving a spiderweb of cracks across it.

Groaning as his long history told him a grim tale of the pains and injuries he had received already, Xander rolled away from the shell-shocked Baron and slowly forced himself to his feet, "Next time I'm setting you on FIRE BEFORE I DO THAT BITCH!" he screamed before taking a couple steps back and collapsing to his ass and looking around the trashed lab.

In one corner, the party huddled behind a reinforced barricade made out of the remains of the trashed War Clanks the Baron had brought with him to deal with Beetle's 'Invincible Army,' the last of which had been ripped apart by the Baron himself as the Clank had gotten between the two of them during their little disagreement. Still, it looked like everyone was at least alive. As the good doctor Sun said, "It's not really a debate until you have to deal with post revivification madness."

"K-kill you… with… my mind…"

Glancing over, Xander sighed and slumped to his back as the Baron slowly crawled towards him with a look of hate in his eyes. Still, it was better than the madness, so Xander wasn't too concerned. "You didn't take the 'bad fink' upgrade last time we stitched you back up remember? It made your ears look big and you would have had to wear a colander for a hat to make it work." He reminded the most feared man in Europe who finally seemed to run out of steam and just slumped to the floor in the tattered remains of his greatcoat and shirt.

"They stole and hid the daughter of my best friend," he hissed into the floor as he tried to explain where his rage was coming from.

"I know," Xander cut him off as he knew from long experience that Klaus could easily work his way back into the madness again and then Xander would HAVE to hurt him to calm him down. "I know, Klaus, but this isn't something you can go mad spark on. From what she said, Barry was involved in keeping her from you, they knew you had returned and still they hid her away."

Looking away from the pain in his oldest friend's eyes, Xander leveraged himself up to his elbows and sighed as apparently it was time for a couple dark truths to come to light. "Klaus, they probably thought you were, 'The Other'." at his shocked look, Xander sighed again. "The attacks were perfectly prepared for them, from the very start they were on the defensive. The Other had knowledge that only a close associate of the Boys would have, that was clear the longer the attacks went on. Of all of their companions you were the only one unaccounted for, the one that 'left in a mad rage' after Lucrezia chose Bill over you and the only one that had made it clear that he thought Bill and Barry's 'diplomatic' approach was a fool's errand," he explained before scooting back so he could lean against a chunk of broken granite that had been ripped free from one of the pillars. "When you returned to Europe, the only difference between your methods and tactics and that of 'The Other' was that you actually gave people a chance to surrender," Xander explained before slumping slightly as he saw his friend make the connection in his mind.

Carefully pushing himself up to a sitting position, Klaus tried to hide the hurt he felt as he watched Xander carefully. "You were quick to join me on my return," he said before taking a deep breath. "In fact I remember you spending an excessive amount of time within reach of me for the first few months."

Nodding, Xander decided not to even argue the point. "I had to be sure, and if you can look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn't do the same I'll eat my hat!"

Ignoring the sharp gasp from the Jager nearby, Xander watched carefully as Klaus sighed and flopped onto his back.

Taking that as acceptance that he'd won the argument, Xander forced his way to his feet. "I'll be taking my new minions and your Soprano wonder over there to escort her back home. A couple Jagers wouldn't be amiss either in case things escalate. I'll figure out what's going on and no matter what the reasoning, you will get an answer."

Ignoring Gills outburst that he was just a high tenor, Klaus sighed. He really did have too much to deal with at the moment, even ignoring the obvious drama that a Hive Engine would usually generate, he had to deal with Beetleburg, Tarsus, the populace and the University. He just didn't have the time or energy to handle a surprise Heterodyne showing up out of the blue. "Take Grace as well," He ordered before glaring at his last true friend darkly. "I will not negotiate on this, take the blighted thing or I will summon Dupree in and see how she handles the situation."

Klaus actually felt bad about that as Xander and Dupree had a long-standing hatred of each other. The term, 'Bad Blood' didn't do it justice as he was quite sure one or the other would be quite willing to poison themselves if they knew that it would take the other one with them. For a time there had even been a betting pool as to whether or not the two were secretly infatuated with each other and it was all UST or not. That particular gambling pool had mysteriously disappeared soon after it leaked it's existence and Xander had heard about it. He still hadn't found a way to remove the scorched shadow that had been left behind of the airman that had started that particular rumor.

Truthfully, it was usually impossible to get Xander to agree with something that he didn't want to do. Klaus still had nightmares about the one time Bill and Barry had tried to force him to eat some Brussel Sprouts. the great Saint-Josse-ten-Noode clocktower had lost ten minutes during the ensuing fight. Still, the threat of his personal bane being called in caused Xander to growl darkly before nodding once in acceptance. Smiling to himself despite the pain, Klaus slumped to the floor. Sometimes it was good to be king.

With a grunt, Xander forced himself to his feet and dusted his pants off. "In that case, I'll leave you to your politics and paperwork that you love so much, herr Baron," he cheerfully stated before collecting his troop and happily ignored the Baron's glares as he skipped from the building.

Behind him Klaus wondered once more if he could make a colander look distinguished.

* * *

"Um, Sir?"

Glancing behind him, Xander raised an eyebrow at the girl that had caused more of a stir than the Hive Engine. "Just call me Xander. What can I do for you?"

Blinking at the polite response after nearly ripping the Baron to pieces, Agatha had to take a moment to collect herself. "Sorry, but I must have been hearing things, did you really tell the Baron that I was related to the Heterodyne boys?"

Reaching out, Xander swiped one of the local Penny Dreadfuls out of the hands of a Wulfenbach air guard that was lazing about. Ignoring the startled yelp from the man as he tried to snap to attention, Xander tossed the book to the startled girl, "You tell me, that's Bill and Barry on the cover, they even have a pretty good likeness of your mother on the back."

As Agatha looked at the cover for what felt like the first time, Xander let her have a moment as he pointed at the guard. "Get me a pair of Jagers and tell the 'Zrak Kralj' to send down the Grace," he ordered and let the man scamper off with a yelp before turning back to the shocked girl.

"Yeah, you definitely got blessed with your moms looks. No offense, but your dad had a face that could sour milk," he said and danced back to avoid the fist she had thrown at his head. "Not sure which side you get that reaction from, though honestly it probably came from both."

He chuckled before glancing over as two Jagers slumped into the room with a look that seemed to be based off the average disgruntled teen.

"Vat's dis den? You have someting for us to fightz boss?" The one on the left asked with a grin as the one on the right glanced at Agatha with a much more intense look on his face. "Perhapz you van't us to watch de gurl?" he leered.

"Actually that's exactly what I want you to do."

Blinking, the two looked at him in shock before glancing at each other and then back at him again. "Vat?"

"Boys, this is Miss Agatha, we have reason to believe that she may well be a Heterodyne."

Behind him, Agatha gave a small wave as the two monsters eyes locked onto her with the focus of a starving dog on a particularly juicy chunk of meat.

"We aren't sure, so we're taking her to her home where we are going to ask her parents some questions. The answer to these questions will be shared with the Baron and the Jagergenerals. Your job is to escort us through town and then guard the house while we talk. Should things go poorly, you are to follow and protect Agatha until we can get a better grip on the situation. You are not to interfere, speak, look at or be seen by her or her family for any reason other than saving their lives," Xander explained with a pleasant smile before leaning in with a much darker look. "Is there any confusion whatsoever about what I just said?"

Xander held their eyes for a minute until both of them nodded before turning away. "Good, because if I even think you idiots are acting out, I will personally dip you in the Barons melting vat and watch as you are rendered down into childrens' toys. You will be a failure to House Heterodyne and I will personally tell Mama Gika that you betrayed the Oath," he snarled darkly before making his way back to the front.

"So where can we take you miss?" he asked as Agatha glanced at the two jagers for a moment before shaking her head and focusing on him once more.

"Umm… Forge Street, my parents own a shop there."

Nodding at that, Xander headed down the street as the two Jagers took up positions behind them and began glaring at the world around them. The chance of an actual Heterodyne being here doing what dozens of years of military structure could not.

"X-Xander? Sir?"

Glancing back at her, Xander raised an eyebrow at her as she worked up the courage to ask what she wanted.

"You don't… seem to like the Jagers, why is that?"

Blinking at the question, Xander took a moment to think about that before pointing to one of the Baron's forces that was climbing over the broken form of the giant clank that had fallen earlier. "Do you see that airman, Miss Clay?" He made sure she actually looked at the purple furred lemur man that had been pressed into an air uniform before he continued, "He is monstrous, he was made as a monster. Since joining the Baron's forces he has served with a distinction that would do anyone proud," Xander explained before pointing at the two Jagers. "THAT is a monster, not because of the fur, or the horn or the sharp teeth. That was a one hundred percent human once that raped and murdered and stole with the old Heterodynes and was so good at it that the old Heterodyne decided to gift them with the strength and speed to be better at it," Xander explained as he ignored the dark look the Jager was giving him.

"If you are a Heterodyne, then they will be YOUR monsters, but that doesn't change what they are, they will serve the House Heterodyne in any way they are asked. For today, that could be 'Dig people out of the broken house' and tomorrow it could be 'beat that same family to death with the corpses of their children' and they will do both, with a smile on their faces and a song in their hearts because their Heterodyne asked them to do it."

Turning back to the road, Xander shrugged, "They can be nice, and funny and easy to get along with, Miss Agatha, but don't ever, not for a single second, forget what they are. The Jagers are monsters, and they are damn proud of that fact."

It was a much subdued Agatha that lead the small team back to her home.

As they approached the shop, Xander pulled the two brothers aside and carefully handed them a small handful of coins and a small sphere. "Grab yourselves something to eat and drink, but keep your wits about you. If you see the Jagers charge the house, pull the cord and throw it up, if anyone other than us leaves with Agatha pull the cord and throw it up, if the noon bell rings?" Xander trailed off as Moloch pocketed the small sphere with a nod.

"Pull the cord and throw it up, Yessir," the sergeant said with a serious look as Omar shifted at his side and glared at the building darkly.

"You sure you won't need us sir? There might be trouble," the more violent prone brother asked.

Xander nodded. "There might be, but if it's trouble that I can't handle then I need to know that I have someone I can trust to call in the big guns."

The brothers glanced between each other before nodding in unison. "And what is the 'Grace' sir?" Moloch asked before giving a shrug. "The Baron was rather insistent that you take... her?" Moloch trailed off as he was a tad unsure of the pronoun he had used, any further questions were stalled as a slim pale hand wrapped itself around his neck.

"Guten Morgen, Je m'appele Grace Oslakasduaggter Tryggvassen" the blonde haired Geisterdamen said with a sinister smile that chilled the blood of the two soldiers.

Sighing at his goddaughter's theatrics, Xander pointed at the hybrid sternly and ordered, "One language at a times, Grace." Then he held his hand up to stop her, "And it has to be a language at least three of us speaks."

Othar's daughter stuck her tongue out at him and pouted for ruining her fun.

"Everybody, this is Grace, the daughter of Othar Tryggvassen and a Geisterdame named Oslaka that Othar met in Paris. Speaking of the specifics of that particular union is currently disturbing enough to get you excommunicated by all twelve of the current Popes and a cease and desist order delivered by over the horizon mortars from The Genetic Knightly Order of Belfast."

As Grace waved happily at the stunned group, Xander sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Apparently his day was going to get a lot more complicated.

* * *

(A/n) Geisterdamen are a species of female beings from a mirror dimension that exists without light. They are albino with pale eyes and a disturbing fondness for spiders. They showed up after the fall of The Other and have spent the last fifteen odd years searching for something. It's believed that they steal children, poison crops, bring plagues and a whole host of other things that are commonly blamed on people that are not local. What's known for sure is that you do NOT want to fight them.

Per Othars twitter feed he spent several years as the Common law husband of Oslaka in the warrens beneath Paris.

And yes, Othar has a twitter feed.


	4. Chapter 3 - Grace and Mercy

As the group stared at her, Grace waved happily before looking at the two brothers with a frown.

Recognizing what was about to happen, Xander sighed, "Grace, No!"

"Grace yes!" She growled before putting both men into a headlock and smiling "I want them both!"

"Not happening, young lady. You can't just go about kidnapping people."

Squeezing the two mens' heads into her chest, Grace scowled at her Godfather darkly. "Can too. Baron's law says you have to respect the ways of my people!"

"First, you don't have a people," Xander challenged only to be interrupted by the Hybrid as she smiled.

"Which makes me Queen," she countered and Xander sighed again.

"Secondly, your 'ways' need to be codified into laws and structures, not made up as you go along." Xander pressed on, holding up a hand to cut off her counter, "And not scribbled down in a Diary last week," He said and smiled as she pouted before pointing at the two slightly flailing men. "Third holding them to your breasts until they pass out and then declaring that silence is consent is wrong, now let them go!"

Pulling the two away from her chest, Grace glanced between the two before giving Moloch a shove. "Your whiskers itch, you're banished from my harem."

Gaping at the strange woman that had assaulted him and his brother, Omar was less than prepared for the white skinned, crazy lady to squeal something that sounded like 'Open mouth is consent' before her tongue was in his mouth. In a matter of moments, Omar was receiving one of the deepest kisses of his life as the crazy lady shoved two feet of tongue into his mouth and down his throat.

Omar had considered himself to be quite cosmopolitan when it came to the women. His time in the service had netted him a wide range of experiences with the gentler sex, as such he was considered to be quite the ladies man by his brothers. However, nothing in his years of chasing women had prepared him for this and that included that one time with old Olga Von Threep on his sixteenth birthday.

After a short eternity of flailing in a panic, the soldier felt a massive hand grab him by the back of his uniform jacket and jerk him away from the overpowering grip, and far more importantly, from the tongue. The two feet of tongue.

Gagging slightly as the last couple inches wrapped around his own tongue and clung to it as he was pulled away, Omar swore an oath of fealty to the one responsible for saving him.

Chewing on the Horse Jerkey she had stolen from the eldest Von Zinzer brother, Grace swore that her prude of a godfather wouldn't stop her this time.

"That's enough of that Grace! You have a job to do and this one is working for me," Xander said sternly as his goddaughter mocked pouting before blowing the frozen Von Zinzer a kiss and snapped to mock attention with a giggle as Xander sighed.

He indicated the young girl nearby, "Grace, this is Agatha, as of right now she is to be considered a class three Yellow VIP. Until we know otherwise, I want you to keep an eye on her and on the Jagers."

Xander watched as his goddaughter seemed to teleport to the young Heterodyne and swept the confused girl up in a hug, spinning her around with a squeal, the half-Geister sent a dark glare at the two Jagers that were with the party before she set about interrogating her new bestie on all the gossip she could drag out while her prey was still in shock.

Holding the catatonic man at arm's length, Xander passed him off to his brother with a sigh. "I'm sorry about her. I'd like to say that it's a flaw of her mother's people, but honestly she could just as easily get it from Othar. Whatever the case is, she hasn't quite cottened on to the fact that there is a difference between 'Husband' and 'Hostage' a situation that is not helped by her infatuation with the sky bitch at all." Xander said with a snarl at the last part before forcing himself to calm down. "Whatever the case may be, she does have some hard and fast rules that she will abide by… Usually… Mostly… Sometimes…" trailing off Xander considered his goddaughter and sighed. "Anyway, we need to be getting to work." With a wave and a final comment about their job, Xander corralled the gathered warriors with the ease of long practice and moved them towards their destination.

Behind him Moloch watched the assembled monsters walk towards the machine shop and sighe. Dragging his brother towards the open air cafe nearby, Moloch hoped that Xander wouldn't get too mad if he bought his brother something to fortify him after the attack.

If he was lucky, he might even find some Gleekin Grog for sale or trade, the last town he had found any in had actually paid him to drink the stuff. Apparently the brew was a tad difficult to dispose of safely, something about poisoning the water table or some such.

Moloch idly wondered what mad-boy would have thought of creating a table out of water and why so many people were concerned about it before shrugging the thought off. No matter, the grog should perk his big brother up enough to get him through the day. That, or set his hair on fire. Either way, he was pretty sure his brother wouldn't be kissing at the air anymore so he would count that as a win.

-

stepping into the machine shop Xander smiled at the scent of oil and metal that filled the place. One of the discoveries he had made in this crazy time had been an aptitude towards mechanical work. Unfortunately, his time with the Baron and the work required to govern a small province of the Empire had kept him out of the garage for far too long.

Maybe when he was done here, he could put some hours in and see if he could get his Chariot up and working again.

As the others stepped into the shop, Xander glanced at the back of the hulking construct that Agatha had called her parent and sighed.

It looked like things were going to get complicated. Xander wondered if anyone else had it as hard as he did at times.

-

Silas Merlot screamed as he held on to the short rope that was currently dangling over the edge of a pit filled with carnivorous war puffins. The growling, chainsaw-like death beneath him was overshadowed by the joyful laughter and crashing sounds of his kidnapper. Othar dove into the fray with the Beetlesburg Puff Kings that had been trying to take control of the criminal elements during the chaos of the Baron's occupation.

Above Silas a rather sadistic goat gnawed on the rope the one-time assistant to the town's Tyrant was holding on to.

There wasn't anything particularly special about the goat that was trying to murder him though, the creatures were just assholes sometimes.

-

 _(Short Chapter to keep myself focused, Hope you all enjoy it.)_


	5. Chapter 4 - Tea Time

And then they brought me back here!" Agatha bawled as she hugged the massive construct around the waist as he held the massive tractor above his head and seemed to be struggling slightly under the strain.

Taking pity on the construct, Xander moved over to the engine and with a grunt hefted the machine from the struggling man's grip, "Seems you're a little under the weather, old man. I remember when you would play Atlas in the old plays and pulled it off without any fancy effects," Xander said as Punch allowed him to take the burden off him and with a frown snatched Agatha away.

Letting the man get some distance, Xander slowly let the large farm implement drop to the ground with a sigh. "You know, I always wondered where you two ran off to. No way would you allow the boys to hare off on an adventure without someone to watch their backs," He grumbled as he dusted his hands off and stretched slowly to let Punch come to grips with what was happening. "What the hell happened, Punch? Where are the boys and what in the first spark's name made you think it was a good idea to just ghost like that," he growled before a slight prick on his neck reminded him that Punch was never a solo act.

"Judy, still hanging out with this reprobate," he whispered as the kitchen knife held steady at his jugular and the second member of the Boys first foray into creation glared at him darkly, even as the two Jagers stared in shock.

Grace, for her part, Had drawn a Cutlass and a rather nasty looking Needle Pistol out of her belt of tools and weapons and was now poised within striking distance of the woman threatening her godfather.

With a short hand signal the half-Giesterdaman slowly lowered the pistol, though she still remained poised to use her blade should the need arise.

"What have you done," Judy asked darkly as she stared between the Jagers and the now wide eyed Agatha

Grunting as he pressed forward into the blade and felt it give way as he called her bluff before stepping away from Agatha's protective mother figure, "Now that we've gotten the growling and threatening out of the way, how about we send the kids up to start packing and we three sit down like adults, drink some tea and discuss things." Xander said simply and shook his head as the two tensed at the thought of packing. "No, I am not taking her against her will, but I know you two well enough to know that you are about to rabbit and probably have a half dozen plans to get out of the city now that Klaus is aware of her presence. So can we please quit with the posturing and drink some tea?"

After some brief, silent communication, Punch sighed and nodded before nudging Agatha towards the two younger members of the party.

"Gil, Grace, take Agatha up and help her pack up everything she needs. Leave the big things and the like," Xander ordered as he moved towards the kitchen and shrugged. "If the 'Clays' decide to run it would be best to pack light so they're not encumbered, and if they accept the invitation, then we can have the Baron do the heavy lifting later," he explained before turning to the two Jagers that stood by the front door. "As for you two, sit down and make sure we aren't disturbed."

Ignoring the comments from behind him, Xander made his way into the small kitchen/dining room combo. The soft whirr of an air bellows was moving the oppressively humid air out of the kitchen through a rather intricate system of copper as enamel speckleware hissed and bubbled under pressure atop the stove.

He figured he had caught Judy in the middle of her canning day, a habit she picked up during their time in Avignon nearly two decades earlier. It was during the adventure of the 'Miraculous Retreating Rhône' and had actually saved the boys when the Soleil Papacy had tried to have them burned atop the 'Pònt de Sant Beneset' bridge after they had solved the mystery.

They had only been saved when they had been granted clemency after the fourth most powerful Pope had had tasted Judy's jellied Tulip Pears that she had canned just the day before and gifted to the constructs of the city.

He was surprised that she still kept up the habit after all these years, but he guessed that it was a feeling of home.

Taking a seat at the small, cozy table, Xander took a deep breath and waited as Punch and Judy moved about to prepare a simple tea set. While Punch and Judy had been one of the boys' first creations, they were considered to be some of their best as well. Back in their heyday, the two Constructs had stood against rogue clanks, psychotic constructs and sentient rutabagas run amok. The last had, thankfully, never made it into any of the Heterodyne boys books thanks to a rather effective campaign of bribes, oaths of silence and dark threats of violence to all involved.

Xander planned to give Gil the Benford two thousand Whacki-Weed-Whacker as a birthday present. He made a mental note to be off the continent when that happened, though Klaus would turn him inside out if he ever got a hold of him after that. Still, it should be good for a laugh and it would definitely get Klaus to work on his cardio.

Taking a deep breath, Xander nodded politely as Punch set down a small brown and blue tea cup in front of him before Judy filled it with tea. The two working in concert as they set the tea up and took their chairs themselves and carefully filled their own cups.

Taking a moment, Xander slipped out a small silver flask and poured a small bit into his cup before offering it to the other two. With a shake of her head, Judy refused even as Punch reached across the table and politely took the flask to drop a small dash into his own. With the first sip, lightning seemed to arc across the revived flesh even as the rips and stitches tightened up, clearing some of the fatigue from the big man.

It had been a collaboration between his Gleekin and the Baron's brightest minds, the liquid lightning acted as a method to help the constructs of the world keep their charge far longer than they usually would. It had proven to be fatal to most humans, though sparks could be thrown into a deep madness by the liquid and usually ended up building some sort of sentient organ grinder of doom before sleeping for a week.

The Jagers that tried it said that it had a 'varry nize keek!'

Taking his own sip, Alexander had to agree to some extent as an arc of electricity sizzled across his tongue and through his system. With a sigh, he set the cup down and began to try and explain to the two why it would be best to come with him of their own free will. Honestly, he would rather be fighting something right now.

* * *

Silas Merlot grunted as a heavy blow to the gut knocked the wind out of him and sent the stick thin man sprawling to the ground in pain. Holding his gut, the once Administrative Assistant Tyrant to Beetleburg snarled darkly before forcing himself to his feet. A crazed look in his eyes as he foamed at the mouth madly and with a screech of unbridled rage he launched himself at his opponent, his hands twisted into claws ready to rend and tear.

With a twist of its body, the goat sidestepped the enraged human before bouncing up and with a twist of his head brought both horns crashing down onto the madman's head, sending him to the ground once again.

Holding his head in pain as the goat proceeded to bounce up and down on him, Silas desperately wished that this whole day was nothing more than a bad dream brought about by some overly fermented fish paste.

He would give anything to be sitting down with a cup of tea right now.

* * *

Sitting down in the overly gaudy chair that Boris had found somewhere, (he refused to call it a throne) Klause sighed darkly before glaring at the first of his many headaches. The Slaver Engine had been picked up and was getting loaded under heavy guard while the rest of his troops worked to enforce peace in the town.

Currently he had a half dozen merchants that had been caught price gouging when they heard that he had taken over. It was something that always seemed to happen when he moved into an area. He would understand it if his presence was a destabilizing influence. He would be far less annoyed by this on a personal level, if he didn't put so much damn time into making things stable wherever he went.

Shaking his head to clear the dark cloud he was descending into, the Baron stared at the six merchants. His initial, knee-jerk reaction, was to simply ship them off to the Waxworks and wash his hands of them. It was a simple and direct act that would show that he was both fair and not to be screwed with, all in one simple gesture.

Unfortunately, Alexander had been a horrible influence on his inner tyrannical villain over the years. So, sighing in defeat, Klause pointed at one of the short paper pushers that always seemed to orbit him when he was anywhere near a professional location. "Gustav, pack these six up and put them to work at the Paderborn Imperial soup kitchen for the next year. A time of service to the poor and all debts will be squared," he ordered as he ignored the plaintive begging of the assembled merchants and turned to the next headache.

Apparently the gathered students and craftsmen of the town had somehow caught wind of his plan for a glass bell micro-lab and administrative center and home for the town square and had somehow turned it into a competition on who could make the most stupidly over the top creation they could.

Glancing at the round ball that had everything he had asked for, but also had an inner Labyrinth filled with sharp glass edges and would spin around slowly forcing everyone to stay awake for the majority of the day as they rushed around to avoid being tumbled about in a hallway of razor blades and broken glass.

Rubbing his eyes in despair as he tried to figure out a way to let the obvious spark down gently, Klaus cursed Alexander again for being able to ignore the chains of command.


End file.
